I just completed my Kickstarter for my event, Visualize Somerville 2. It got fully funded, which is amazing. Last minute pledges came in and really pushed it past the threshold at the 11th hour. I can certainly tell you, Kickstarters are very stressful. The pledges, as I researched, are like “U”. They start strong with all your friends and family pledging and helping you along. Then there is this long stretch where you get barely any, but you keep having to post post post about the event. That is a very hard time to deal. It seems every post produced 1 or 2 pledges, and I just felt like I was beating a dead horse! Especially with Facebook being harder to reach a crowd now… It was a hair raising few weeks. Onward though, as we got funded, now I have to get all sorts of gear, projectors, access points, the works. This is a big event and has a lot of moving parts. Some are not in my control, and that is scary too. This is also my MLA Capstone project (replaces a Thesis), at Harvard Extension, so I figured go big with it!

Next up is this:

A VJ friend of mine just dropped a huge gig on my lap, VJ for 3LAU in Virginia this Friday! Whoa. I am getting flown there, play the show, and flown out Saturday morning to NYC. Why NYC? Because there is another Cityfox event, and I am not missing that. I get to babysit projectors and do some VJ work, and then helping with breakdown. Money in the bank and I get some fun music times as well.

Combine this all with the upcoming Further Future event AND moving to LA, and I have a LOT on my plate.

This last Thursday I was asked to help make the grand opening of the rock climbing collaboration space Brooklyn Boulders Queensbridge interesting. Along with a few visualist friends, Levitation Theory and Doctor Mojo, we really made the place go “bang”! We had several projectors for the event, and had checked the space before hand. Along with the BKB crew, we figured out the best shots possible and prepared for the night.

Brooklyn Boulders Queensbridge projection map

When the day of the event came we met up at the Venue early. There is a Vj saying “first in, last out” which states the nature of our position, we come in early and stay late. Mostly because our equipment and our brand of setup makes us bring all our own equipment!

Setup time!

Setup was pretty good, there is a big difference when you work with professionals. As long as they know the general idea they will just start working at it. Very nice to see the projections evolve organically and see what art pieces emerge. At one point Levitation Theory and I setup a piece that was me climbing up and down the walls. Layer that with a few different time and you have me climbing all over the place. Really fun to make art without knowing what the result is.

We ended up on a few different walls and each was different. it was a great way to see the space transformed for this event:

So Further Future was definetly a great time. Although there were quite a few bumps on the road during the event, in the end it turned out to be one of the best. I think as a first time festival they aimed high and really hit it out of the park. I spent most of my time at night Vjing on the bus, which really was a treat. It had these huge LED screens that were so bright we had to turn them down to 30%! Crazy.

I will definetly go back, and because of my awesome VJ friends (Tamara and Steve), got some great video too. Check out the short clip below for a sample of my set.

I was lucky enough to be part of a truly amazing festival this summer, MoDem in Croatia. I worked the amazing Italian based Deltaprocess VJ team to light up the massive main stage and chill areas for a solid week. The mapped stage was huge and, along with the other incredible deco, made for a most mind shattering week of psychedelic trance.

The recap video for the festival has finally come out today, and of course the VJ team is highlighted! If you want to skip to it, after the 8 minute mark is when they start to focus on the visual content, I even have a cameo.

Check it out, it is one thing telling people about an event like this, but it is another to show them. Later when I have the time I will update with my own videos, pictures and stories. Until then enjoy the recap!

(and as always, check out my whole travel blog as I update it through the countries I went through this summer!)

After quite the journey, I am back in Boston to recollect myself and start the next chapter. I will be updating my Tumblr with my trip details and stories. I got to VJ at 2 very special locations, and will add those to this site once I get them situated!

The Vj competition was amazing, we had 8 Vjs come in from all parts of the New England area and it was a blast, I will post an update with a video recap when I have some time. The winner was none other than Projectile Objects from Philly. He did an amazing job! All in all though we had a great time and it really showed, which was the whole point. a bigger recap will come with more media from it. Here is a few pictures from the night.

VIZUALIZE SOMERVILLE

Sadly I had to delay this event to the fall. The equipment at the very last second we were to use ($50,000 worth of equipment, happily insured) was under 4 feet of water! The shop that the equipment was in had a pipe burst in the ceiling and this filled up the room. With no other way to get that amount of equipment (which was donated by 4D New England), I had no choice but to delay it until after I am back. Speaking of..

I am happy to say that I am posting this from London in a hostel and have started my backpacking tour through Europe. I already have gone through Iceland, and have been in London for a few days. Next up is Scotland to see my cousins, then to Brussels, then Amsterdam, then Paris. More to come on that! I likely will link my Tumblr to this blog to keep everyone updated too.